An electronic communication system typically includes a transmitter and a receiver coupled by a communication channel. In digital communications, digital data that includes a plurality of binary digits, i.e., bits, may be serialized and converted to an analog signal for transmission. The transmitted analog signal is carried by the communication channel to the receiver. The received analog signal may then be digitized (e.g., “sliced”) to recover received bits. The recovered bits may then be deserialized and the plurality of recovered bits may be output from the receiver.
Non-ideal characteristics of the communication channel may distort the analog signal resulting in a bit error rate (BER) at the receiver. A bit error means that a value of a recovered bit is not the same as the value of the corresponding transmitted bit. For example, non-ideal channel characteristics include a finite bandwidth, a frequency dependent attenuation in the pass band and frequency dependent propagation velocity. The respective magnitude of each non-ideal channel characteristic is specific to a communication channel. In order to manage and/or reduce a bit error rate, the receiver may be adapted to an associated channel upon deployment.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.